Individual Differences in Learning and Memory: A Unitary ...

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DIFFERENCES IN LEARNING AND MEMORY 531 learning and memory. My purpose is to review the work in another area of individual differences, the cognitive approach to learning and memory. By necessity, this review will be highly selective, focusing on a single model and largely excluding the factor analytic evidence (but for an excellent review, see Carroll & Maxwell, 1979). Still, the hope is that it will help to reveal some of the parallels between the personality and cognitive approaches, some of the discrepancies, and some of the issues being ignored by both camps. This article begins with a short introduction to the prototypical information processing model of memory, the two-state model. In part, this approach is adopted to complement the review by Eysenck (1977), which takes a levels-of-processing orientation (Craik & Lockhart, 1972). How- ever, I believe that the two-state model offers a better organizational scheme and does not have the predictive problems recently pointed out by Nelson (1977) and Baddeley (1978). To reflect this concern, I have tried to suggest how one might phrase individual differences questions in terms of the two-state model. Using the component structures and processes of the model as an organizational framework, the next section of the article reviews an illustrative subset of the recent research in individual differences. In this, the largest section of the article, I have attempted as much as possible to integrate the rather disparate findings. The final section provides an overview and points to some of the emerging issues. THE INFORMATION PROCESSING MODEL The hallmark of cognitive approaches to the nomothetic study of learning and memory is their reliance on box models such as the one shown in Fig. 1. In this simplified version of the two-store model (cf. Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1%8), inputs enter the system through modality-specific sensory registers. These are brief “clearing houses,” upon which attentional processes operate to select situation-relevant information. The hub of the system is the short-term store (STS), which can be likened to “conscious- ness.” Once selected information in the sensory register has been pattern recognized, it enters STS, the working memory (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). Here a wide array of control processes, or strategies, can be called up from long-term store (LTS) and implemented. Among these are rehearsal schemes, encoding and decoding routines, and retrieval plans, to indicate just a few. The goal state is LTS, the permanent storehouse of information. There are only two major departures in Fig. 1 from the Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) model. First, there is a further subdivision of LTS into a semantic and an episodic component. This is consistent with Tulving’s (1972) distinction between event-related information (episodic), and event-free knowledge (semantic). Second, the pivotal “rehearsal buffer” in STS used in the original model has been de-emphasized and now is
532 COLIN M. MACLEOD A%P *-------------------------, , Pattern , Recognition I SHORT-TERM RESPONSE GENERATION FIG. 1. The prototypical two-state model of memory. included as one of the available control processes. This change reflects the recent focus on processing (as opposed to structural) variables in learning and memory (cf. Craik & Lockhart, 1972). With this type of model in mind, one can begin to frame questions about individual differences in specific memory functions. A partial list of such questions might include: (1) Do people differ in the capacity of their sensory registers?’ (2) Is attentionai allocation ability a source of individual differences? Does the speed of pattern recognition vary between individuals? (3) Can some people use STS more efficiently than others? Do some individuals have a larger set of available control processes? (4) What sorts of control processes should be used to accomplish optimal transfer, and do these differ from person to person? (5) Are individual differences in LTS primarily in the episodic or the semantic component? Does the efficiency of retrieval (and perhaps the utility of various cues) represent a distinct ability? Clearly, these are all possibilities and, with a little imagination, one can generate numerous other candidates. Instead, let us look at some of the research this sort of model has generated, restricting discussion to post- perceptual processing. 1 Although I am omitting any discussion of individual differences in preattentional processing, there is some evidence that this is an area worth pursuing. For instance, Snow (Note 12) discusses several studies of masking phenomena in iconic memory which clearly demonstrate inter-subject differences.
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